


Downer Ending

by ForTheDamaged (CountingWithTurkeys)



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Bad Ending, Dystopian, F/F, Not Canon to Symphony Universe, POV Second Person, Tags Are Hard, mad queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountingWithTurkeys/pseuds/ForTheDamaged
Summary: You know that Queen Bubblegum has to be stopped. Regrettably, that would involve doing the impossible: going through her wife.
Relationships: Princess Bubblegum/Marceline
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	Downer Ending

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my blurb as a writing experiment. I'm not sure I'd repeat it, but it was nice to explore one of the ways that the Symphony Universe could have gone horribly wrong. What do you think? Should I do more stories exploring what could have gone wrong in the main continuity?

Your mistake was trying to take her by surprise.

It seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time. She’s a walking weapon of mass destruction, so taking her head-on would obviously be suicide. Instead, you had the bright idea to try to take her when she was alone. Just you and four of your best soldiers, a strike team whose accomplishment would be recorded in songs for generations to come. You would slay the monster, stop the siege by the mad queen, free the people, save the innocent. You and your men would be heroes, worthy of even Finn the Righteous’ praise.

She wasn’t hard to find, you just needed to follow the trail of carnage. As you choked back the bile of seeing people, your kith and kin, turned inside out, charred to husks, limbs rearranged like a child's puzzle, your resolve hardened. You couldn’t back down now, not when Ooo needed you. Not now, not anymore. All that stood between the apocalypse and Ooo was you and your team. You weren’t dressed for hard combat because the sound of armor would be too easy for her sensitive ears to pick up. As it stood, you had expected to find one army clashing against another to provide you with adequate cover. But that wasn’t what you found.

By the time you and your men arrived the battle had finished, her demons having already moved on to their next target. It wasn’t all that odd that she wasn’t with them. She was a sick and twisted woman who took pleasure in her work, considered it an art. She liked to admire her handiwork, this twisted declaration of her love and devotion to the mad queen. Killing her wouldn’t end the war, but it would land a crippling blow to its true machinator. Enough to take back Ooo from her tyranny, enough to let you come home to your children.

You found her there, in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by gore and the sobs of the dying. She sat indifferent, floating in the air beneath her parasol to shield her from the sun’s glare. Even it hated her. Regrettably, she was Deathless, so its attempts to burn her to a crisp, while admirable, would only slow her down. You had thought that would be enough for you and your team to gain a slight edge, but before you could issue a command your eye caught on the object next to her, an item that chilled your soul.

It was impaled in the ground, an affront to everything good and free, that proud banner emblazoned with a red ‘M’. The banner itself was a color Finn the Righteous had once heard her call ‘low grade red’, back in the days when she was sane and made her living as a musician. You weren’t alive then, you only have his word to go on; it was hard to imagine her as a mercurial imp, but they had been friends once. That banner's presence, its signal, meant that the area and everything the moon would touch come nightfall belonged to her now. Not the monster herself but the monster’s mistress, the machinator of this war.

You had laid low to the ground, you and your men. Though you lacked armor you had special suits that clung like a second skin. They would censor your beating hearts and mute your body heat. It would help take her by surprise, so long as you moved silently, but the five of you had been training for this, had practiced the surprise assault again and again and again. You weren’t rookies, you were trained assassins, hardened from the loss of your homes and your loved ones. You repeat their names in your mind over and over like a mantra, watching as the monster strung an absent melody on her axe. As if it weren’t drenched in blood, the life force of some poor soul whose only crime was wanting to live free and had paid the price for their insolence.

Nodding a silent confirmation you had moved fast, you and your men. They trusted you to anticipate any and all reaction, to alert them and protect them while they struck from behind, the side, below, everywhere they could. But something gave you away. You would never know what because you wouldn’t live that long. She hadn’t moved particularly fast - speed wasn’t a power of her’s, even if she was naturally agile - but Glob was she intimidating, and the moment she straightened and laughed in derision one of your men broke formation. In your final moments you couldn't blame him. Those fangs were terrifying.

Time moved slowly for you, but not as slowly as it did for your men. Her axe tore through their flesh, separating limbs from torsos, but killing was not her goal. The man who had broken formation was quickly eviscerated but the cut was clean; he would bleed out, slowly, probably over the course of several hours unless put out of his misery. The resistance just didn’t have the medical supplies or knowledge to treat him. Even if the remaining four of you had succeeded in taking her down there was nothing you could do for him.

It was a moot point, because the plan had already fallen apart. Your second man was struck down by intense white fire, the third welded to him. When the fourth - the poorest soul of all - got too close, her jaw extended and clamped around his neck. His strangled screams were cut short by a loud *crack*, and you finally retched at the sight of her drinking your comrade’s life force.

The worst part, though, was the singing.

Through it all she never stopped, starting the moment you launched your attack and ending only when she drove you into the ground, her boot on your neck. Once upon a time she had been a singer, you can see that now, but her voice was haunting and twisted now, the soundtrack to her madness. Not a drop of blood, anyone’s blood, tainted her immaculate suit, she was just too practiced. Bizarrely, in the back of your mind, as you lay at her mercy, you pity her. She hadn’t always been insane, but love has a way of corrupting anyone. This was a fitting punishment for loving the mad queen too intensely. It would be beautiful were it not a travesty.

As she presses down on your throat your vision starts to fade but you can still see her, see her grinning at you with a mouth full of fangs. She hefts her axe onto her shoulder and glances at her handiwork lazily, letting out a low whistle. She’s impressed with herself. Finally she chuckles, a sound drenched in narcissistic venom, and turns back to you. Her head tilts as the amusement falls away; she's grown bored with the lives she’s ruined. Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, you glare at her, mustering your loathing with every fiber of your being. She may be a thrall but she’s a willing one, and without her, maybe, just maybe-

“If you think _I’m_ messed up, you should meet my wife!”

Her axe comes down and your life ends.


End file.
